


Imaginative Problem Solving

by Betery



Series: Highnoon in the Universe [17]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game), Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Astral Plane, Gen, black paladin lance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-04 16:05:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16349756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Betery/pseuds/Betery
Summary: It's been months since Lance came across the shadow ghosts. Months since Allura's computers have been trying to work out the problem on how to help them. It's a combination from the help of Lotor and remembering a little university tour he had that helps him see to the answer to his problem. If only the solution hadn't involved the castle getting zapped.Authors note: I've tried to make this story stand on its own but it might help to read (or re-read part 10 consequences of ghosts)





	Imaginative Problem Solving

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! It's been a while. College is kicking my butt and that makes it hard to post often so I hope you forgive me!

Then:

**Eagerly Lance bounced in his seat on the jet and pressed his face to the window. He was going on a _mission._**

**“Careful their scamp, we gotta buckle up soon.”**

**“Right.” It was more his _Pa’s_ mission than anything else. But Winston gave permission for Lance to go along. As long as he behaved himself, which was no small prod as Lance’s pride because when has he NOT behaving himself? He was the perfect gentleman!**

**His Pa wasn’t divulging much about what he was doing, but he knew Pa wasn’t really happy about having to come all the way out here to get whatever info he needed.**

**“I would say she’s an old Friend.” Pa said, and Lance listened  while he looked at the view of the clouds at the Jet flew through them, “But that would mean we’re still on good terms.” Pa’s chin was resting on his hand and he was looking outside the Window too, a frown pulling his lips down, and his eyebrows pulled together in tension.**

**Lance opened his mouth to pry but the words caught in his throat, so he stopped. This seemed like the kind of thing Pa would share with him if he wanted to and besides, he’s bringing Lance along! Can’t really complain about that. He could pry later.**

**Oasis University was big, beautiful, and boring. Lance had expected to see like, agents talking into earpieces or students shuffling around with like…superhero suits in their backpacks but the place was almost utterly deserted.**

**It was also summertime. So maybe that had something to do it.**

**Oasis University was pretty, it had various tree’s planted in pots in the middle of the road and a huge library in the distance.**

**“I’m gonna put you in Satya’s capable hands now, scamp. Don’t go given her trouble or wandering off.”**

**Lance saluted, “Roger that!”**

**Pa led him into a study where Ms. Satya was working at a computer, her hair was tied up and clipped back, and looked up when they entered.**

**“Afternoon Mcree, O’Deorain is waiting for you in her…office.” Pa nodded and patted Lance on the shoulder.**

**“I’ll see you two later. Get along now!”**

**Satya grunted and continued to click on her keyboard and pulled up another screen and looked at it for a moment before typing more things down.**

**Lance waited.**

**Satya looked up and blinked once as though she hadn’t expected Lance to be there. She pressed her lips together and looked around her office. She tapped her fingers on her desk and she opened her desk drawer, grabbing a pad of paper that was cream colored and a precisely sharpened pencil.**

**“You may entertain yourself with these.” And she handed them over to Lance.**

**Slowly he took the pad, looking at the stationary and up at Ms. Satya who was back to her typing. He sighed and headed to a corner to do…something.**

**He doodles planes, and guns. And aliens and drew some stars. He drew bumble bees and birds. They weren’t very good, but it was SOMETHING. He quickly filled a page and he sighed a bit, leaning on one of his arms looking up to see if Satya was doing anything interesting.**

**She was still typing.**

**He flipped to a new page. He tapped his pen on the paper. Trying to think of something, anything to do. But he had exhausted all his creativity and he needed something _stimulating._ So, Lance stood up and started looking around. In _fact,_ if Satya was so absorbed in her work there must be _something_ interesting about it. **

**Carefully and slowly in a sense of exploration rather than pure nosiness, Lance made his way around Satya’s desk. “What’re you working on?” He asked, and Satya physically jumped, again as though she had completely forgotten that Lance was there.**

**“Whoa, sorry didn’t mean to scare you.”**

**“I was merely startled.” Satya corrected, and she attempted to continue typing.**

**“Why are you typing so much?”**

**Satya stopped and sighed, “I am working on a research paper on the new breakthrough of hard light.”**

**Oh, _this_ was interesting, new tech that Lance didn’t know about? Count him in! “What can hard light do?” **

**Satya took pause, examining Lance for any doubt of interest but she smiled, “Would you like a demonstration?”**

**Oh boy howdy, he _would._**

**Satya led Lance to some sort of lab that was clean and housed different equipment in cabinets and shelves, the tables were just a few and above them were different tinkering equipment hanging above. She walked over to one shelf and opened it taking out an interesting looking device. It had a kind of claw on the end with a handle on it and Satya motioned Lance to another door in the back of the lab, it opened to a sort of target range.**

**“Hard light is a new breakthrough in technology, in its beginning stages it was tested for weaponry potential, thus this photon projector was made.” Her voice was cheery and sort of like a tourist guide in a museum. At least one who actually enjoyed the subject matter. She discussed the creation of the light particles, the bending of the waves of the light into various forms.**

**“The photon projector has various settings, and an energy ball for example,” And she holds the trigger on the weapon pressing a button with her thumb and the claws begin to move, creating a ball and then releasing, dispersing against the wall, leaving a burn. “It can use two various beams, an older model of the photon projector used the latching beam. In which a beam of hard light is programmed to ‘hold onto’ various masses until they are… incapacitated.” Satya looked a bit reluctant to use that phrase, but she continued, “The other setting is a simple piercing beam, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.” At this she set aside the photon projector and pressed a button, a door opened and some robots hovered in and took various positions.**

**“Hard light had as much potential to create. In this case I will create sentry turrets that will emit beams to incapacitate nearby targets.” With a flourish of her hands, she sends off three turrets attaching themselves to the walls with tiny click blooming out and lighting up beams of light attaching themselves to the robots. It took a few scant seconds for them to collapse eyes dark with no energy left to keep them hovering. Lance’s jaw was on the floor.**

**“How did you do that?” He was bouncing on the balls of his feet the weapon, the turrets, “And how can _I_ be able to do something that cool?” **

**Ms. Satya smiled at him softly and shook her head, she lifted left arm up mechanical in nature but no less dexterous than a normal arm, “Due to my line of work I have to work closely with hard light. My arm allows me to harness the light nearly at will. It’s still experimental.”**

**The tone took an educational tone again, the bare minimum of interest. Like it was just the usual to have an experimental piece of hardware attached to yourself.**

**“That’s too bad. I’ve already got all the arms I need. I’m pretty fond of them.” Satya chuckled.**

**“Flesh and blood are by no means the limit if you have the passion.” Her words filled the room, swimming in Lance’s ears. The way she inflected ‘by no means’ and ‘limit’ it was curious… Did Ms. Satya once have a flesh left arm? Did she lose it in an accident? Or did she just replace her arm because of science?**

**Ms. Satya kept moving forward regardless of the change in atmosphere, “Since I can work so closely with hard-light I can find it’s weaknesses perfect it and figure out exactly what limits I can reach, and breech.”**

**“So, what,” Lance said, to break his own tension, “You can make shields with them?”**

**Ms. Satya chuckled at that and shook her head, “Oh Lance, you lack imagination.”**

**Gentle and carefully with another magical flourish hard-light popped itself from her palm, and she pinched her fingers together, molding the light. She made different twists with her arms and hands. The end result was a little bunny rabbit. With cute floppy ears!! It was still a pale blue and had no discernable fur but a bunny it was, and Lance’s heart fluttered as he reached out.**

**Ms. Satya handed him the little thing. If one could hold a star this is probably as close as you could get. The little rabbit was warm in his cupped hands and it looked up at him wiggling its little nose. Lance brought the pale blue bunny closer to his face to get a better look.**

**The bunny reached forward to press his nose against Lance’s. A scant second later the bunny burst into glittering sparks of light.  Lance dropped his hands in surprise and looks up at Ms. Satya for an answer.**

**“Hardlight can create solid things such as buildings and sentry turrets, but it can only create the illusion of life for a short time. But who knows? With enough imagination and ingenuity, hard-light might be able to breach the medical field.” Her warm words spoke with prophetic confidence.**

**Lance couldn’t imagine how light could majorly help Angela, but it could little ways like making extra bandages and gurneys. If Ms. Satya had the imagination and know how to take this to new heights, who was Lance to complain?**

Now:

Data streams passed over Lance’s eyes dulling his outer awareness as he zeroed in on the problem it was trying to solve. A while back the team had landed on a planet with the people having to literally pull themselves back together from a power plant explosion.

They were shadows of themselves and it would take hundreds of years for them to sort out the problem organically. Allura herself had even assured that they would work hard to find an answer but in all the code and numbers that Lance was looking over trying his hardest to understand- they were no closer to an answer.

Lance could pilot multiple lions, plan missions of attack, down over a dozen galra in one blow make, the ladies swoon with a smile, but dammit if he could make this computer run any faster to help people that really needed it!

His posture slumped over the console the pale blue light glaring back at him in the night shift of the castle. He got up and walked away letting the data putter in the background as usual. He couldn’t sleep, and it was too late for a snack.

Sighing, Lance headed to the observatory, looking at earth might help. He could meditate but sitting in a room trying to clear a head full of thoughts was as fruitless as trying to get all the sand off of you after one wash- there would always be grains left somewhere uncomfortable.

Quietly he entered the room, a little startled to see the pale blue light washing the room in it’s activated state. Who else would be up at this hour?

Lance got closer and to see who was still up and standing with his back to the door was Lotor, looking up an image in the observatory. The planet, of course, was blue with the Altean holographic system, but Lance was slightly familiar with the planet. Wasn’t that-

“Altea, in its former glory,” Lotor stated, still standing with his back to Lance. “History has been re-written time and again by my father, so it is difficult to get a true picture of what happened 10,000 years ago. But half of my heritage came from this place, and half of my heritage was wiped out.”

Lotor turned around, his face grim and longing. He looked like a man who had gone on a long journey only to come up empty-handed.

“It’s pretty awful, what happened I mean, Allura and Coran don’t really talk about that stuff… but if you wanted to ask them I’m sure they would tell you.”

“That’s very kind, but even if they had the answers I wish I’m unsure it would heal anything. Both our homes are destroyed, and nothing would change even with the full picture.”

This was getting into dangerous territory and Lance struggled to find the right words of platitude. How did you comfort someone who was the prince of the Galran empire with a destroyed homeworld from both parents? And on top of that the guy who was supposed to inherit a bone-crushing empire when Zarkon bit the dust. IF Zarkon would ever bite the dust that is. That’s a lot to unload and Lance wasn’t really feeling up to trying to exercise his empathy.

Somehow Lotor seemed to realize this and he stood a bit taller holding his hands behind his back, “Would you show me earth? I’m afraid I do not study much beyond the empire.”

“Right, sure,” Lance said, would it cause any harm? Lotor was here under the close supervision of team Voltron. He had even saved Lance’s life. It was an uneasy but simple choice to make as he made the familiar movements of spinning the map over and over and over and- there. He slowed at Jupiter but then earth took up the screen. His home. How was Pa doing? And his Mom? Abuela was probably praying with her friends in church every Sunday for him. Gosh, would Veronica be applying for the Garrison soon? He didn’t know. His heart hurt thinking about it.

“Your home must mean a lot to you for you to still be here,” Lotor observed.

The air whooshed out of him in half laugh, “The _universe_ kinda needs me to pilot one of the lions you know. The picture is a lot bigger than Earth.”

The smile that Lotor gave at that was wry, “It’s a long voyage ahead, paladin. Asking a few scant persons to save millions of planets from the Galra Empire is no easy task.”

Lance snorted, “It’s not like we can ask the Galra nicely to give up 10,000 years of conquest. It’s practically ingrained in your DNA, you can’t erase that.”

This time Lotor titled his head in thought, “The Galra value victory. If we could convince the Galra that allowing their conquests the illusion of freedom as the ultimate victory… it wouldn’t be the same as giving them up but it would be the first step.”

“Illusion of victory?”

Lotor nodded his arms falling to his side and he began to pace back and forth, “I have experimented with allowing planets under my supervision to rule themselves while having to obey Galran law with much success, but have had little success in convincing other members of the Galran empire to do so. Allowing planets to take back their culture gives them hope and power. My goals are my own and having to micro-manage countless planets is exhausting. If they can govern themselves enough to be complacent but not rebel, what is the difference?”

As he spoke his hand moved around in emphasis. Lance rubbed his arms a bit and shifted on his feet, “I dunno, Galra don’t seem the type to uh, be that sort?”

Lotor frowned in thought, “Unfortunately you are correct on that front. But it’ll be up to us to change that won’t we?”

Lance tried not to shudder from that, he grimaced, “Yeah, I guess. I’ll catch you later, yeah?” and he quickly left. He tried to swiftly make his way back to his room and he locked it for good measure to make sure no one bothered him.

He sighed and took his jacket off, and put on one of the soft PJ tops to lay in bed. Sleep would be able to give him some clarity. He slowed his breathing deliberately trying to relax enough.

\--

The next morning was an early one for Lance, and every bone in his body hated every second of it. He stumbled into the mess where Hunk was humming over the stove. Lance stumbled over and pressed his forehead against the soft back of his best buddy.

“If I hand you my bayard will you end me?”

Hunk shook his laughter, “No can do, Pal. How about some alien eggs instead? For some reason, these eggs are spicy on their _own._ ”

Lance smiled and reached around to the offered plate. “Spicy eggs? Just my deal” He went over to the table and sat down in the chair just in front of the stove, “Has anyone else gotten breakfast?” He asked around the bites of the naturally spiced proteins balls. The flavor was robust and tingling.

“Nope, but then again Coran and Allura prefer food goo to start off the day. Not sure about our uh, new guest.”

Lance hummed in thought as he took another bite, “What do you think of him, Lotor that is.”

Hunk shrugged as he cracked one of the Orange-spotted eggs into the frying pan. “Not sure. I’m getting totally mixed signals from the guy. One second I trust him the next I wanna shove him out the nearest airlock.”

The chuckle rumbled in Lance’s chest, “Yeah, but I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

The doors opened as Lance spoke that last statement and who was to walk through? The Devil himself his eyebrows raised in curiosity, “And why exactly are shoes dropping, Paladin?”

“An idiom dear Princeliness.” Lance assured, “What brings you down here?”

Lotor hummed non-committally and his attention was caught on the plate of eggs that Lance had left unfinished. “Is that edible?” He inquired, which resulted in Lance rolling his eyes.

“Yes.” He punctuated, stabbing a bite of egg, and offered them for Lotor to take. “Try it. My buddy Hunk here knows what he’s doing.”

Eyeing the Fork Lotor grasped it carefully and brought the prongs to his mouth and ate the bite, slowly chewing and frowning in thought like he was a food judge.

“It’s acceptable.” Lotor decided, “But venturing to open the horizons of my pallet was not the reason why I came here, Lance.” Lotor turned and looked him in the eye, “Allura and I believe we have managed to solve a problem that your computers have been analyzing for months?”

Lance narrowed his eyes, “What problem would that be?”

He returned the gaze levelly and Lotor smiled the only way the tricksters can with a glint of humor and that knowingness about them when they have a piece of information they’re about to make one of their dastardly deals with. “I believe there is a case of shadow people on a planet you came across many months back. I believe I know a way to help them.”

\--

Knowing that Allura and Lotor had come up with this plan on their own kind of hurt Lance’s pride a bit. _Lance_ was the one who instigated the mission to find a way to get their bodies back faster. Yeah, he wasn’t a technical genius but at the very least he felt like he should have been included in the process.

Allura was waiting for them when they entered the Bridge. He took a breath and headed out of the elevator, “Lotor here says you may have cracked the shadow-people case?”

She had been looking over schematics of a battle plan but when Lance spoke flipped the images away with a twitch of her fingers, her face lit up when Lance prompted her.

She clapped her hands together, “Yes, we have! Although the way of going about it will be a bit tricky. It will require gaining knowledge we do not yet have.”

“And what information would that be?”

“Have you ever heard of Oriande?”

Lance blinked, “Uh,” He waved his hands up and down his body as an example, “Human. Not Altean. “

Allura leveled Lance her ‘stop being stupid’ look and Lance slumped at that. She hadn’t given him _that_ look in ages.

“Fine, I’ll play along. Is this some kind of city of Atlantis? Mythical city full of secrets about the world or universe?”

Now it was Lotor’s turn to blink a bit in confusion, good to know humans could still surprise people “Perhaps. This place, however, is based in fact. It is the home of Altean Alchemy, and we need to gain this information.”

“Would you even know where to start looking for it?”

That was the kind of nibble Lotor had been looking for because he gave a sharp smile and help up a small glowing stone, “In fact Lance, we do.”

\--

Atlantis and Oriande were very similar Lance decided to curse silently under his breath as Allura and Lotor sailed off on their little space scooters. It was a death trap, very selective and anyone ‘unworthy’ was going to die. It wasn’t just like Atlantis, it was like Aladdin and the san lion eating anyone who wasn’t the diamond in the rough. Minus the whole genetic advantage thing.

The whole castle was defunct from trying to enter the death trap. Air support was caput so they only had a few hours of air. Hunk, Pidge and Coran were finagling with the circuitry trying to breathe life into the old castle. Lance meanwhile was just slumped against the console glaring out into space cursing the Space Atlantis for being an ass.

Shiro and Keith weren’t having a better time of it either and they were quietly talking on the side. He shifted positions perhaps to maybe get a better view of space but even being on his side wasn’t helping. So he shifted to another position and being on his back wasn’t helping either.

Lance grunted and just sat back up and looked back over to the trio of engineers still struggling to get this place working. With a sigh Lance gets up, “I’m going to go check on Katlenecker you guys have fun.”

Keith said something but Lanced waved it off not really paying attention. Everything just felt off to him. From Lotor saving his life to Oriande being super picky who even get to _see_ the city, the castle being shut down almost completely and on top of all that a HUGE promise of helping the Tokyo-Victorian planet get back on its feet.

The walk was long and he needed to pry open the doors to katleneckers room but took a deep breath of nice fresh grassy air when the doors gave enough for him to slip through.

“Hey Girl.” He cooed at her and she moos in greeting through a clump of grass. He smiled at her and pet her from head to rump, “I know it’s pretty dark right now but I’m sure the lights’ll turn back on soon.” She chuffs and returns to eating.

Lance pet her down, checking for tangles (there were not, he was an excellent caregiver) and sat in the grass, reaching out and feeling at the blade and just taking in the silence. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, now was good a time as any to do some meditating.

He focused on his heartbeat and floated for a while, when he next opened his eyes he was in the iris’s garden, nebula’s stretching out as far as the eye could see curling up like petals of a flower.

He stood up wandered walking around the familiar plane. Zen wasn’t here so there went that outlet of conversation. Lance sighed a bit homesickness nibbling away at him.

Shuffling came from the grass and Lance looked up to see the Red, Blue, and black lions stepping out from the outskirts of the garden.

He grinned and got up from his patch of vision grass and headed over to his buds and blue bounced up to him and nuzzled his chest, the force knocking Lance back a bit. It was so warm and familiar he thought he was going to cry as he pet her sleek fur.

“I miss you too girl, but Allura’s taking good care of you right?” Blue chuffs in agreement and heads off to a patch of grass and curls up, placing her head on her paws and looking at the nebulas. Red was next and he rubbed against Lance’s side and Lance reached out, petting the nice fluffy manly main, “Surprised to see you here. Thought you would be off on your own, brooding.”

Red-eyed Lance and headed off into his own area of the field but not before bumping into Lance nearly knocking him over. “HEY! I buffed your scuff marks and THAT’S the response I get??”

Red yawned showing off his sharp teeth and started grooming. Yikes.

The last to greet lance was Black, and she lightly made her way over and Lance waited patiently till she decided it was time to initiate. Like blue, she pressed her head against his chest and he reached up to give her chin an affectionate scratch when his whole vision was taken up by a flash of light.

Slowly Lance opened his eyes and took in his new surroundings. It was vast and had a grid flooring that stretched way out into the horizon. There was no sound and no sense of peace like the Iris had even as Lance took in the cosmos above him. It wasn’t cold, or hot, in fact, it didn’t feel like _anything._  

“Hello?” He called walking along one line looking for anything or anyone to respond.

_“Lance?”_ A voice called, he knew that voice. That voice was _very_ familiar.

“Shiro?”

But the wind from Lance’s lungs got sucked out of him and he stumbled tripping over something and he spun back to wakefulness. Lance shot up coughing and breathing to dissipate burning in his lungs. How long had he been out? Were Allura and Lotor back?

He took a couple deep breaths and grabbed the grass as an anchor. Just as he gathered the gumption to stand up, the lights flickered back on. He took another breath as the air filtered back through the vents.

“Keep-keep up the good work Katlenecker; I’ll come back later and give you a good milking.”

Lance took his time to get back to the bridge, carefully thinking everything over. How could Shiro have contacted him there? He couldn’t have known how to even _get_ to the iris. Unless he did and never told Lance.

Coran and Pidge were fiddling under a console and Lotor standing stiffly to the side gave him a nod when he entered and Allura frowned, “Lance, where were you?”

“With Katlenecker, she’s scared of the dark.” He said it with enough conviction that Allura nodded in agreement, it was so cute how she still thought Katlenecker could think like a sentient being.

Shiro and Keith looked way more relaxed even though Keith was giving Lotor the stink eye.

Should Lance ask? He took a breath and headed over next to Shiro, “Come to any epiphanies while I was gone?” Shiro in response frowned.

“Not really, Lance.” Before heading off somewhere else and strangely enough engaged _Lotor_ in conversation.

If Shiro didn’t do anything while the castle was in disarray, then how did Lance hear Shiro in that weird astral plane?

There was something up here, but Lance couldn’t quite figure out what was wrong.

\--

Lance was staring at the streams of data as the computer looked over the hospital data for what... the 5,000th time? Lotor had mentioned that this Oriand place could give them the info they needed to save the people having to pull themselves back together.

He closed his eyes and thought about the feelings of fear, of hope, being lost and trying to find parts of yourself you weren’t sure still existed. Like..like streams trying to find themselves through the shadows.

Light. Filters. Sounds like something Ms. Satya would like. Man, if she were here she could come up with some device that would like, be able to trace back the power problem that led to the machine to explode or something.

The people needed some kind of conduit to allow them to sift through the ‘pieces’ of themselves and put them back together. Could Altean Alchemy…?

He needed to talk to Allura. Maybe Lotor.

Lance headed to the door to try and find someone and gosh, speak to the devil and he shall come all right!

“Yo, Lotor, remember when you said that this Oriand place could help that planet of shadow people?”

Lotor blinked slowly, “Yes, I recall, but Allura and I haven’t-“

“What does Altean science know about Hard light?”

At that Lotor canted his head to the side his eyes unfocused in thought, “I’m unsure, most of the science I’ve researched has been quintessence based; however, I’m sure there are a few schematics and studies I could dredge up on hard light technology.”

Lance pumped his fist, “Yes! Awesome!! Okay, how long before you can get some info put together? I’ll need to talk to you and Allura about an idea I had but I need to run it by Pidge first. They’re _way_ more familiar with the power plant disaster and maybe they’ll even have some schematics I mean it’s _Pidge_ why wouldn’t they-“

Lotor chuckled cutting into Lance’s stream of thought, “There is no need to be in such a rush. Allura has the knowledge to help you with your plan. I doubt she’ll reject it.”

He nodded and turned to go get Pidge and talk about science things that hopefully they’ll know more about.

\--

“Hard Light, huh?” Pidge looked up from their computer, “I think I remember downloading a paper or two on it. Why?”

Lance practically vibrated with excitement and sat crosslegged, “You remember that Victorian Tokyo planet that kinda blew it’s inhabitants apart into like- mist shadow things that were pulling themselves back together?”

Pidge snorted and pushed up their glasses, “How could I forget? But what does this have to do with hard light?”

“I think,” Lance starts taking a beat, “I think that if we can use hard light tech, with like some altean magic alchemy stuff- we can make like…filters to put on the planet to help filter out the radiation and stuff and maybe even the hard light could help them make their own bodies.”

Pidge rose an eyebrow, “That’s a bit of a stretch Lance, but I’ll look into your idea.”

Lance snorted, “Such a lack of imagination! I’m counting on your Pidge, thanks.”

“Sure.” Pidge said and then punched Lance’s arm, “Get outta here space cowboy!”

Lance bowed out peaceful, grinning from ear to ear. Things were really working out! Now all he had to figure out…was why the pit in his stomach wasn’t going away.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Things are gearing up, yeah? What did you think? Let me know in the comments!


End file.
